Author~Illustrator

About

About

I grew up in Waltham, Massachusetts with a love for the Red Sox, making up stories, and drawing. While studying architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design, I rediscovered the world of children’s books and knew that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life!

I started working at The Children’s Book Shop in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1986 and learned lots about writing and illustrating from reading many of the thousands of books that came into the shop each year. In 2006, after 20 years, I left my job at the book shop to write and illustrate books full time.

The first book that I illustrated, published in 1998, was Larry Dane Brimner’s What Good Is A Tree? Since then I have written and illustrated six books of my own: Oh, Baby! A Celebration of Babies, The Snow Ghosts, Eat Your Peas, Ivy Louise!, Sea Surprise, Fat Bat and Swoop, and Space Boy. I’ve also been the illustrator of four more books by other terrific authors: Let’s Sign! by Kelly Ault, Emily’s Magic Words and Emily’s Sharing and Caring Book, by Cindy Post Senning and Peggy Post, and Friends and Pals and Brothers, Too by Sarah Wilson.

There are so many artists whose work I continue to be inspired by every day. Here are a few of my all-time favorites: Melissa Sweet, M.B. Goffstein, Helen Oxenbury, John Burningham, Kady MacDonald Denton, Erik Blegvad, Peter Sis, Lucy Cousins, Charlotte Voake, Satoshi Kitamura, Emma Chichester Clark, Olof and Lena Landstrom, Richard Scarry, Edward Ardizzone, Simon James, and William Steig. I’ve even been lucky enough to have met many of them!

Now I spend most of my days reading, making up stories, and drawing, just like I did when I was little. I live in Easton, Massachusetts, with my daughter, Sophie, and my wife, Mary. We have a dog named Rosie and a cat named Uma, and soon, perhaps, even chickens!

In 2011, Horn Book had me do their “Five Questions” feature – read it here.